


Something gets lost from a safe distance

by Elisexyz



Series: A memory turns into a bad dream [3]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: (I'm as surprised as you are), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Getting Together, Idiots to Idiot Lovers, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:15:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29499420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: Illya is stressed. As it seems to be the case more often than not, it’s Solo’s fault.
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo
Series: A memory turns into a bad dream [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134389
Comments: 19
Kudos: 76





	Something gets lost from a safe distance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chamel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamel/gifts).



> Look at me, I actually did it! Thank you very much for the idea, thanks to you these two got their shit together somehow, I hope you are proud of yourself XD  
>    
>  Well, everyone, this fic is a sequel to the two other one-shots in this series, and I have... no idea how much sense it will make on its own, honestly LOL, so fair warning.  
>  The title from "Five" by Sleeping at Last. Enjoy!

Illya is stressed. As it seems to be the case more often than not, it’s Solo’s fault.

There is simply no way that he’s ever going to get used to his partner’s first instinct being to go off-script at the first sign of trouble, especially when ‘off-script’ rarely involves him or Gaby: the plans that Solo comes up with on the fly tend to be ridiculous _lone_ stunts.

This time, Illya barely had the time to realize that by the sound of it the target might have been starting to sense that something was off, when Solo got rid of the tracker and bug that was allowing Illya to listen in – he was immediately sure that it was done on purpose, because of course it was.

Later, Solo explained that he needed to do _something_ to earn the man’s trust. Illya vaguely saw his point, somewhere in the back of his head, but he still yelled all of his frustration at him – actually, he probably only managed to put _half_ of it into words, but it was better than nothing –, on edge and shaky like a bomb about to explode, grim what-ifs running through his head at maddening speed.

The look that Gaby and Solo exchanged between them, the one that says he is being ridiculous and they are trying to gather strength from each other to deal with it, didn’t help him calm down at all, and he didn’t talk to either of them on the flight back home.

(When Solo bought him coffee as a peace offering, though, he still accepted it, the big smile he received as a reaction cutting through the fear and anger still seething under his skin.)

After all of _that_ , Illya never expected to get much sleep. Yet, when he wakes up still reeling from a nightmare and grunting in pain because he trashed and turned enough to fall off the bed and crush his own arm, he thinks this is taking it one step too far.

He groans, using his free arm to push himself on his back and closing his eyes for a moment as some dull pains go through his other arm. When he notices his mind poking at the last traces of his nightmare, he quickly opens his eyes again, taking a breath and firmly thinking that _no_ , he is not going back there, that’s a terrible idea.

“Peril?” comes Solo’s voice, just slightly above the volume you’d use around someone who is sleeping. He appears by the open door, poking his head in. “I heard a noise, is everything—what are you doing on the floor?”

Illya grunts, because what kind of a question is that, and he pushes himself up to a sitting position, deciding that lying there for a while so he has no chance of falling back asleep any time soon would be too undignified. “I fell,” he says, curtly.

“Right,” Solo mutters, already coming closer to offer him a hand up. Illya automatically takes it, each one of his joints stiff as he straightens. It must show on his face, because Solo eyes him like he’s trying to make some kind of evaluation. “Everything okay?” he asks, his tone measured enough.

“Fine,” Illya says, his cheeks heating up as he begins to feel more and more stupid as the seconds pass. “I’m fine, you can go back to sleep.”

Solo shifts his weight from one foot to the other, eyeing him warily. “Are you sure?”

“I am sure.”

He’s fine, he really is. He clenches and unclenches his fists, breathes in and out as discretely as he can, and though there’s something inside him still wavering, at least he’s lucky enough to have received a reminder that everything is fine and it was just his mind messing with him. He didn’t even need to go _look_ for said reminder. He’s okay, there is no need to fret.

“Alright,” Solo eventually says, taking a step back. “Goodnight, Peril,” he adds, before he heads to the door.

Illya returns the sentiment a few seconds too late, and in a blink he’s left alone once again. He lowers himself back on the bed without much thinking, or at least trying to _limit_ the thinking, but he has never been good at not moving in spirals, much less in the middle of troubled nights.

He's being ridiculous, he keeps telling himself. Everything is fine.

He pulls the blankets up to his chin, crossing his arms tightly underneath them and pulling his knees up. He ends up a little titled to the side and with not much room to breathe, not with the way he’s holding his arms tightly around himself, but he doesn’t consider letting go. He tries to sink a little farther in the mattress, the pressure against his back somehow reassuring, but his mind won’t still, and though he’s had practice pushing nightmares away and thinking of something, _anything_ else, he can’t seem to stop thinking of Solo’s stupid stunts and his recklessness and the way the tracker going dead made his stomach drop all the way to his knees—he can’t live like this.

This is insane and unprofessional and he’s pretty sure that there’s a handbook somewhere that says plain and clear that you should refrain from giving your partner any strokes if it can be helped.

Then again, even if that were true, seeing a written regulation would probably only make Solo _happier_ to do whatever he pleases.

The thought comes with an aftertaste of fondness, and it’s not really surprising when it’s followed by a pang of regret at having sent him away so quickly.

It’s been twelve days since when he found Solo pacing outside of their rooms in the middle of the night and he invited him into his bed, and though Illya took some time to fall asleep, a little awed, ridiculously nervous and feeling like he was supposed to keep watch, when he _did_ it was—nice. It was an unusually peaceful night.

He isn’t sure what kind of person that makes him, but he begins wishing for Solo to come back and ask for help, or for him to give some obvious sign of distress, only to have an excuse to let him stay again.

It hadn’t taken him long to notice that Solo was having trouble sleeping: it would have been hard to miss, with the way he tiredly rubbed his face whenever he had a moment to sit, the odd sharpness in his voice and the way he dragged himself around in the morning. He also had taken notice of that time on a flight to Zurich, when Solo fell asleep clinging to him, stayed out throughout the whole trip, and finally seemed decently rested once he awakened.

Illya had filed the information away, and it had been only natural for him to offer help when he found him pacing around for seemingly no reason: chances were he needed some company, and well, he was there.

He doesn’t have many illusions beyond that: if Solo were at all interested in him, there probably would have been some sign of it at this point, and Illya won’t begrudge him for needing a friend, much less ask for anything in exchange.

Even more so considering that Solo seemed uncharacteristically sheepish, when they woke up in bed together in the morning. Or rather, it was past noon: Illya opened his eyes around nine, but Solo was still out, unmoving and tucked against his chest, and there was no way he was going to shake him off. His arm fell asleep two times and his muscles began to urge him to move after a while, but he stubbornly kept lying still, thinking that Solo probably needed the sleep.

Even when Gaby poked her head in, looking decidedly hangover and probably worried at the sight of Solo’s empty room and by Illya being asleep past his usual habits, he merely gestured for her to keep quiet and he tried not to feel too uneasy under her knowing look.

When Solo finally woke up, he looked clearly embarrassed and he told him that he shouldn’t have let him sleep on him for so long. “You’re too nice, Peril,” he’d added, teasingly, pulling away and not looking at him in the eye. When Illya tried to tell him that it was fine, he didn’t feel like he was believed.

Solo has been bearing the nights on his own since then, but he still looks a bit tired. In fact, if he heard him fall just now, it’s probably because he was already awake. Or if he wasn’t before, he’s sure to be now, and Illya can’t imagine that he’d easily fall back to sleep.

It's kind of his fault if he is now awake, but that doesn’t mean that Solo is going to be any more inclined to ask for his help, which he supposes he understands. As a matter of fact, it might be a little unfair of Illya to wait until Solo crawls to him for company instead of freely offering it for a change. He could just—get up and go. If Solo is fine and he doesn’t want him there, he will say so, or show him somehow.

The thought makes his skin crawl, but at the same time it’s a reassurance that he is not _pushing_ for anything by trying, even if there are his own selfish interests hidden behind his offer. No one has to know. It doesn’t have to matter, not if there’s a good chance that Solo needs some company too.

He swallows heavily, rolling on his side and quickly pushing himself up before he can overthink himself out of it. He lets his feet carry him to Solo’s door, and, since it’s already open, by the time fear and regret start twisting and turning in his stomach he has little choice but knocking anyway.

Solo shoots up in a sitting position, staring at him. “Yes?”

“Can I stay here?” Illya ends up asking, his eyes on the floor and his voice a bit quieter than he intended.

The few beats of silence that follow suck the air out of the room, but then Solo starts talking, a little too quickly and clearly surprised. “Yeah—yeah, of course, uh, yeah, come—you, uh, you can close the door if you want to.”

Illya hums, because he isn’t sure he could say anything else, and he takes a few seconds to close the door behind him because it’s something to do while he lets the relief sink in.

Solo scoots to the side, giving him a smile as he pats the space next to him. “Come on in,” he says, friendly and teasing enough that it almost fools Illya into thinking that this is perfectly normal for him.

He nods, hyperaware of his arms hanging by his sides and his legs impossibly heavy as he walks closer, until finally he’s settled under the covers, face to the ceiling and breaths coming a little more easily.

He turns his head to the side, catching Solo lying on one side and staring at him with a mix of curiosity and concern. Beyond that, he looks fine. He doesn’t even look particularly tired. The thought that he might be the only one gaining anything from this makes him deeply uneasy, something in him urging his legs to carry him as far as they can in the shortest time possible.

Instead, he swallows, the urge to explain himself mixing with the guilt and coming out as a small and uncertain ‘Thank you’. He internally winces, because it’s as good as an admission of need and does nothing to rectify the situation.

Solo snorts, giving him a broad smile. “Of course,” he says, easily. “It’s no bother—and you did let me sleep on you, which was _awfully_ nice of you—”

“I didn’t mind,” Illya can’t help cutting in, because it’s true.

Solo’s smile wavers and shrinks, but it doesn’t disappear. “Right.”

“I _didn’t_ ,” he stresses, stubbornly. “You can sleep with me every night if you want to,” is what slips out next, his mouth working faster than his brain and his blood chilling a moment later. He feels like he just missed a step while running down a flight of stairs, and he braces for impact.

Solo snorts. “Alright, I think you are way too tired to be talking right now, Peril. Go to sleep, I promise I won’t hold this over your head,” he says, light and complete with a quick pat on Illya’s arm. He looks unconcerned, except by looking at him Illya is quickly reminded of the face Solo makes when he’s swallowing down a big dose of something sour and he has no means to do anything about it and—logically, Illya should be relieved that Solo didn’t take him seriously, that he didn’t read anything into it.

He _knows_ he should, and maybe a part of him is, but—it feels all wrong. And maybe he’s just feeling self-destructive because he’s tired, maybe the semi-darkness is making him arrogant, or maybe he’s still pissed at Solo for worrying him and he wants to punish him with an uncomfortable talk, but—he ends up turning on his side, glaring at him.

“I am perfectly awake,” he says, tightly. “And I meant it.”

The smile is gone from Solo’s face, leaving just big eyes and a slightly open mouth that tells him this is one of the few occasions when his partner is at a loss of words. A voice in the back of Illya’s mind tells him that it’s a prelude to an uncomfortable realization and that abject horror will follow. Somewhere within him, though, he dares hoping that might not be the case.

Finally, a flash of a grin appears back on Solo’s face, but it looks half-hearted and decidedly uncomfortable. “Careful there, Peril,” he says, voice just a little shaky. “I might start reading into this.”

It might all be in Illya’s head, but he thinks he looks—hopeful.

 _You just have to take a gamble every now and then_ , a voice that sounds disturbingly like Solo’s prompts him. This is stupid and risky and there’s such a high chance that it will end in complete disaster and—and it’s beginning to sound like one of Solo’s stunts, which he does have to deal with on a daily basis, so— _so_ , if Solo ends up having to yell at him about this, they will just be square.

“What if I _want_ you to read into it?” he gets out before he has a chance to regain his common sense.

Solo stares at him, still as a statue and eyes fixated into his like he’s waiting for _something_ to happen and give him an indication as to what to do next. It takes approximately thirty seconds of that for Illya to fall far down a spiral of deep, _deep_ regret.

The more practical side of his mind, the one that currently _isn’t_ busy panicking and cursing his own stupidity, is already trying to draft excuses, to prepare bad jokes that are not exactly believable but that might just be enough for Solo to give him a pass and accept them, just so that he can pretend not to know what he just _hinted_ at here—this was stupid, taking risks is one thing, but assuming that just because Solo flirts with everything that moves it meant he could bring up something like this and _not_ be met with—

Solo glances at his lips, and—he doesn’t look disgusted or the least bit disturbed. He still seems a little shocked but _maybe_ —

Before Illya can make up his mind about what he’s reading there, Solo tentatively reaches out, his fingertips lightly brushing his cheek before he cups his jaw. Illya narrowly manages not to spontaneously combust at the feeling of his thumb tracing the line under his bottom lip. What he does do is willing his hand to come to rest on top of Solo’s, finally managing to meet his eyes. He looks so _open_ that for a second Illya is thrown, thinking _who are you and what have you done with Cowboy_ and _beautiful_ and _just a little closer, please_.

He can’t help leaning forward, if only a little bit, but that seems to be enough for Solo to understand: he meets him in the middle, his hand sliding to the back of Illya’s head as their lips meet. Illya wraps his arm around his waist, trying to pull him closer. He can feel Solo smiling against his mouth, and when he begins to pull back Illya follows, thinking _stay stay stay_ and not much else.

The world tilts on its axis when Solo pushes him on his back, climbing on top of him between one kiss and the other. Illya buries one hand in his hair and grabs a fistful of his shirt with the other, feeling himself swoon with relief and wanting, wanting, wanting.

He opens his eyes as Solo pulls back, brushing his nose against his and smiling with both his eyes and mouth. “Can I take you up on that offer?” he asks, quietly.

For a few moments, Illya doesn’t even understand, distracted by the warm breath against his face and the body pressed against his and the fact that he thinks he may have forgotten how to breathe. “What?” he gets out eventually, and Solo must realize that he’s left his brain in scrambles, because his grin turns unmistakeably smug.

“Sleeping with you every night,” he explains, his thumb trailing down Illya’s jaw and making him shudder.

Illya huffs. “I wouldn’t have offered if not,” he says, trying for unamused and vaguely judgemental and not really managing it, because he shoots himself in the foot the moment he realizes that Solo is _so_ close, really close, within-kissing-distance close, so what exactly is he waiting for?

He is _actually_ doing this, he fully realizes as he pulls him down, searching for Solo’s mouth with his own and almost waiting for the _catch_. There is none that he can see, only his partner kissing him back just as enthusiastically, brushing a few strands of hair off his forehead and leaving him a little awed with his bright smiles.

One, two, three or more kisses later, Illya has lost count and he’s forgotten to be paranoid.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates comments, including: 
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!


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